Child Protection- Striking the difficult Balance.

A number of people have lately made comments to me about the recent media in Australia about your child protection services not having acted soon enough. Some one else made a comment to me about feeling that child protection workers butted in when there was no need. This

is the difficult balance of this work.

 

Before I go on, I need to remind people that I’m a child protection worker in Canada, and the rules which Child protection workers work under vary a lot province to province, so the difference country to country is HUGE. Yet we’ve had our own incidents of the same thing… Baby Andy was a while ago now, but it rocked this province for YEARS afterwards! So, it has happened here, and without careful effort by every worker, it could happen again at any time. What I am discussing in this article are general principles and problems that should be common in most places, most likely including Australia.

 

Now, as I was saying, Child protection is about balance. It’s about the balance between making sure a child is safe, and the privacy of the family. We must always remember that an investigation is very stressful for a family, and can make a borderline situation worse. However, we must balance that with the need to make sure a child is safe.

 

Here, we tend to err on the side of caution. It makes a lot of extra work for us, but we go, check it out, and rest well knowing the kids are safe. We are as respectful as possible, and try to be as gentle on the family as possible. Especially if it turns out that everything is good in the home, we make every effort to close up and leave as soon as we reasonably can. Sometimes, an investigation will show that nothings wrong, but that a family could use some help. In those cases we make referrals and move on. If there is something wrong, we try to support the family to address it themselves. Removing children is a last resort, but we still bring kids into care when we need to. We just try to avoid doing it when we don’t need to!

 

However, this does make us unpopular at times. It means that if I get a concern about extreme or unusual discipline techniques, I need to check it out. Sometimes all I find is a stressed out parent who is doing the best they know how to do. Sometimes I find a child with special needs who doesn’t learn the usual way, and a parent who needs some help learning alternative ways to teach their child. Sometimes I find a stressed parent, a stressed child, and that discipline is done in anger. We help the parent learn ways to deal with anger, and to use non-corporeal discipline techniques. Sometimes we find kids that were abused and have extreme behaviors as a result, and that parents have found something that is unusual or extreme but works for them. In these cases, we assess if the technique is physically or emotionally harmful, could worsen the trauma, or is inhumane, humiliating or degrading. If it isn’t any of these things, it may be assessed as being creative but effective. These situations can involve a full investigation, however, as we need to be sure that the child isn’t being further harmed. We would also usually encourage, and at times insist, that the family be involved in counseling. When these situations occur, sometimes we are rejected and demeaned for interfering, other times we are welcomed because we can make suggestions or referrals that may just help. A lot of parents want to use better techniques, but just don’t know what else may work, or may believe that their child won’t learn from anything else… these are the sad ones.

 

I hope you can see that the balance here is a tender one. We know how destructive our interventions can be to a family, especially one in a precarious and fragile balance. Yet, we are always concerned about the child, and so if we don’t check it out, we have no idea if that child is safe or not. So, we do our best to be sensitive, gentle, caring and sympathetic. Some of us are better at it than others!

 

I will insert a little something here. If you know your in a difficult situation where the only choice is unusual or extreme measures, just be proactive about it. Be aware that a worker could show up. Welcome them in, sit them down, and explain what you’ve been doing and why. Ask them for any support or resource that you haven’t already used or tried. Explain why those things didn’t work. Be willing to do whatever they ask. Be willing to try anything you haven’t tried, or haven’t tried recently. If it’s a program you left due to relationship issues, or a particular person, ask if the same staff / people are there. If not, try again. Being open, honest, and upfront with a worker is always the best policy.

 

The other major factor here is policy. Different places have different policy (rules) for when we can get involved and when we can’t. There are many cases where I’d love to help, but we just don’t have mandate (there is no policy/law which lets us get involved). We can only act on things we are allowed to under law. The law is a little different everywhere, but it basically describes what is and isn’t abuse/neglect. If it’s not covered in the description, there isn’t much I can do. The authority I work under is given by law, and if it’s not in the law, I don’t have the authority to do it.

 

It may be that the laws in Australia need to be changed somewhat. But I’ll say this, no country has child protection laws right. Some are better in one area, and worse in another, and vice versa. The kinds of incidents happening there happen all over the place. And when they don’t we have complaints about investigating people that don’t need it. Sometimes, it’s a matter of balancing evils- do I act and hurt the family by investigating, or by not acting could this child be further abused or neglected, permanently disfigured, irreparably harmed, further traumatized, or even killed?

 

The third factor here is connected with the second. Bad systems paralyze and handcuff good workers. As mentioned above, policy limits our actions at times. But the system a worker is in also has other effects. Extremely high stress can overwhelm you, leaving you paralyzed and unable to function properly. It’s scary how long someone can function like this before you realize it’s happening and get help. The same effect can occur in very chaotic work places where getting organized is impossible or attempts to do so are repeatedly defeated. Empty positions, not enough positions, not enough clerical support, not enough supervision and unsupportive supervision are all VERY common situations that can leave workers very ineffective, overwhelmed, grumpy, in a hurry, abrupt, and can make them seem mean, uncaring, harsh or cold.

Have you even met a worker who was really grumpy? Wasn’t listening? Seemed overwhelmed or distracted? Was always in a rush? Seemed cold, uncaring or hard? Was very rigid in following policy? Seems unable to get anything done? Is always fidgeting or seems jittery? Seems emotionally dull, like they are robots incapable of feeling? Did you know these were signs of severe stress? I didn’t until I looked it up when my own stress levels hit the roof. Severe stress can lead to failure to do your job right, which leads to a job review, which increases your stress and drives you to the nut house… or the doctor’s office for stress leave. And where do worker’s end up after stress leave? Most end up at the Job Bank… now usually the online one… looking for another job. So what does all this do to the families? It means they deal with one cold, hard, abrupt, rushed, insensitive, seemingly uncaring worker after another. And this just makes the problem worse, because stressed out workers can’t balance all the conflicting demands as well and end up making the simple choice. I believe more kids are either apprehended or left unsafe or barely safe when workers are stressed. It’s too hard to make the effort to figure it out, and creative solutions become almost impossible. So, the families suffer when the workers do. So, be gentle on your worker, and you’ll be the one to win!

 

This work is a fine and delicate balancing act. It’s not a job you make a lot of friends in. There are days we feel in trouble if we do and in trouble if we don’t. So, we err on the side of caution, so that we actually know the child is okay. That way, we sleep at night. We make more work for ourselves some days… those are the days we earn our sleep!

 

I hope I’ve shed a little more light on this topic and why these cases of gross negligence continue to occur. I hope I’ve also helped those who may have had a worker show up over something trivial or innocent. All the best to you all- this work has given me a new respect for how difficult parenting well  is… your job is harder than mine!